The Norse settlement of Iceland

From about 870, Norse settlers sailed to Iceland, most from western Norway, bringing with them people from Ireland and Scotland, many of them enslaved. Within sixty years most of the farmland was claimed, and in 930 the settlers founded the Althing. The medieval Book of Settlements names about 400 settlers, starting with Ingólfur Arnarson at Reykjavík, where excavated longhouse remains lie beside a layer of volcanic ash dated to about 871.